When Bill Free signed up to join the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs in 1995, his only goal was to play football for the school and get his degree.
That decision would push down a path to become a pilot, flying several jets for the United States Air Force on training exercises, instructing pilots at Columbus Air Force Base and even flying a B-2 Stealth Bomber in Guam.
“I got into my junior year at the academy, and that’s when they start handing out assignments asking you what you want to do in your career,” Free told Columbus Exchange Club members Thursday during its annual One Nation Under God program, held in honor of Veterans Day. “My sole focus initially was just on getting a good education, but I had no idea what I wanted to do afterward. So I had some friends say, ‘Hey, why don’t you try this pilot training thing?’”
Free said he left his hometown of Chicago to attend The Air Force Academy from 1995 to 1999, playing as a quarterback and then as a defensive linebacker while obtaining a bachelor’s degree in behavioral science.
Once he graduated, he spent a year at the school coaching football as a graduate assistant “I graduated from the Air Force Academy, and my first job was at the Air Force Academy Preparatory School right there in Colorado Springs on the same base,” he said. “They brought me in as a second lieutenant, and I got to do what I had dreamed about forever: coach football.”
He came to Columbus Air Force Base in 2001 for pilot training, learning how to fly the T-37 and T-38 Talon, and he became an instructor four years later.
From there, he was reassigned to Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri to become a certified B-2 Stealth Bomber pilot. While there, he performed several training exercise missions off the East Coast and even had a five-month deployment to Guam to carry out flying missions.
“I had the opportunity to spend five months in Guam, and you would think it had its pros and its cons for sure,” he said. “The positive was you’re there with a group of basically your best friends, the guys that you go to work with every day. But the downside is you’re away from family.”
In 2010, Free was sent to Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana and then to San Antonio in 2013, working for the Air Force Global Strike Command, overseeing evaluations of the three bomber jets, the B-1, B-2, and B-52.
In 2014, he was restationed at Columbus Air Force Base as an instructor, director of operations, squadron commander and then as deputy operations group commander before retiring in 2019.
Free said while he left the service to spend more time with family, he wouldn’t stray too far from some of his colleagues at CAFB.
Free took a job shortly after leaving the Air Force as a civilian T-6 academic and simulator instructor at CAFB, where he still works.
“I’d already had 20 years and had a full career,” he said. “It was a matter of whether or not I stayed in the service or got out and did (my current job). If I had stayed in, we probably would have been committed for another five years before I retired.”
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